be able to render immense services as a place for rest, refreshment and provisioning for the army of emigrants who pass year after year on their way to settle in California or Oregon; and when the great railroad is built, which is to join the Atlantic to the Pacific, this territory will be of great assistance, and will serve as a great support, or station by the way.
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University of St. Louis, December 12, 1857.
Very dear FRANCIS
Things are going on very easily in America. It will take a long time to restore confidence among the people. A whole new banking system is projected with assured guarantees. Hitherto these kinds of establishments have, for the most part, been nothing but regular traps, arrangements for smart scoundrels to get hold of the people's money with impunity.
There is a good deal of talk just now about war with the Mormons. These polygamous fanatics have lately been committing infamous atrocities upon the poor peaceable emigrants. A war of extermination is being prepared for them. The Mormons could make it a long and hard one in their almost inaccessible mountains. I think that the Mormons will pass the winter in doing the Americans all the damage they can, and early in the spring take up their march and
take possession of the province of Sonora in Mexico. They have a political system that is inadmissible in a republic, and a religious system still less admissible, which is the
abomination of abominations," invented in the present century. The place where they live, the Great Salt lake country, is most miserable. Wood, fresh water and grass are scarce. The region would never allow a heavy settle-